Trivone: The agency you don’t know about, but should

Here’s what’s become a norm on social media these days. Brands have a foot in mouth moment during calamities: natural or manmade; in a desperate attempt to sell their products and services. What follows is user outrage, ban threats, and the obvious: “Fire your social media agency!” suggestion. Thankfully, there still are exceptions to the norm. During the recent monsoon mayhem in Mumbai, one such Twitter account that sought to ‘help’ rather than add to the ‘havoc’ was that of the Mumbai Police.

Now, Mumbai Police is no brand you’d say, but there’s much to learn from the way it handles its social media. It doesn’t seem opportunistic, operator-run, or just plain boring. And there’s a reason why its tone of voice is so well appreciated.

Jab Mumbai Police Met Trivone

Mumbai Police joined Twitter in December 2015. The two people who played a key role in making this happen were Ahmad Javed, Mumbai’s then Commissioner of Police (now India’s ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), and Deven Bharti, the city’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Law & Order). They were clear that there will be nothing nasty about their language of communication, nothing preachy either. By using popular memes and catchy one-liners, Mumbai Police was able to escape the “Thou Shan’t” route and still tell potential miscreants: “We are watching you.”

Javed and Bharti hired a lesser-known content marketing agency: Trivone. Seven years in the business now, Trivone (Tamil for Sravana Birth Star) comprises of several former journalists who facilitated a dialogue with seniors in the police department. “We were hired for a three-month campaign and were able to attract 24,000 followers in the first 20 days itself,” recalls L Subramanyan (Subu), founder and CEO of the agency. “Everything had to go through approvals but the process was faster, more constructive.”

More Caring Than Clever

Trivone has 47 people on its payroll at this point, but initially, the Mumbai Police handle was run by all of five people: three social media managers and one designer who were all supervised by a project manager. When the Commissioner of Police changed (to DD Padsalgikar), so did the people that managed its Twitter handle. Not all of them, though. Incidentally, the Mumbai Police account has been with HAT Media since May 2016. HAT Media was founded and led by Sunchika Pandey - a former journalist and a former Trivone employee who was a pivotal part of the team that launched the handle in December 2015. Perhaps that explains why the tone of voice of the account is still intact. A recent post reads: “The things we love destroy us every time! Hope you #GOT this #DontDrinkAndDrive”. It is accompanied by a Game of Thrones gif of Olenna Tyrell. A small example of to explain Mumbai Police knows how to talk to its citizens online.

It isn’t just these clever posts; the content that came out of HAT Media when rains brought the city to a halt recently, was genuine and helped individuals instead of directing them to a not very helpful helpline.

It felt like a person going out of their way to get others out of trouble, rather than an institution taking charge of a critical situation. As Subu points out: “People follow people and not necessarily concepts.” But what happened to Trivone after Mumbai Police? Let's find out:

Beyond Mumbai Police

Trivone has worked on 250 projects in the last seven years and Mumbai Police still tops the list of its favourites. The agency also handled social media for Star’s Aamir Khan driven talk show: Satyamev Jayate. “We started the trend of using multiple hashtags for one episode and got 25 of its 26 episodes to trend globally,” he says. All organic trending, he clarifies. Trivone also made a vox pop video on Commonwealth Gold-winning wrestler Geeta Phogat, two years before Dangal. But Subu is most proud of the work for IT clients, largely a B2B mandate. “Many agencies believe B2C is where you can pour out a lot of creativity. We believe B2B has a lot more scope,” he says.

The agency that started with two people - Subu and his peon - has two co-founders now (Amit Rastogi, ex GE, and Chittesh Maheshwari, ex Wipro) and a network of 200 people available on demand. “Most of these are women working from home. They are outstanding in their ability to create content but have made a choice to stay home. That’s a huge talent pool waiting to be tapped,” he says.

The ‘Small Agency’ paradox

Trivone is not immune to churn. “People come across cooler agencies and move out which is understandable . They have to look out for themselves,” says Subu.His core team is still together though. “I’m sure they’re getting offers. I don’t know why they’re still with me,” he quips. Being a smaller player doesn’t help. But for all you know, small can be a strength. As Ashutosh Joshi, AVP at Quikr (who has worked with the agency in the past) points out: “Relatively smaller players like Trivone are able to cater to specific requirements as opposed to well known digital agencies that come with their own baggage and constraints.” Most large agencies struggle to create content which has longer shelf life, adds Subu. Which is why you will find some of the popular ones hiring agencies like Trivone to do a part of their job. But in India, unlike markets like the US, clients still feel social media or content is just an extension of a creative agency’s ambit. Things are changing but not as fast as one would wish them to, Subu feels.

But the likes of Trivone are finding resonance in some consumer-facing brands. Joshi says, “I’ll call Trivone a proper digital media agency because social media restricts the number of domains they operate in. You’ll be surprised to know the problems they can tackle. If they had a review platform, I’d be happy to write one for them.”

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